Classic travel books?

PatrickLondon · Post by **PatrickLondon** » August 5th, 2011, 10:16 am

Some suggestions:

Robert Louis Stevenson: Travels in the Cévennes with a Donkey. (1879) DONE
At the time this would have been an adventure - nowadays the "Stevenson Trail" is the basis of a tourist industry of its own - and this account gives a picture of a then little-known part of rural France where life was hard and history cruel. His treatment of the donkey may raise a few modern eyebrows, perhaps.
http://www.archive.org/stream/travelswithdonk00stevuoft

Mark Twain: Innocents Abroad (1869) DONE
Twain's report of a tour of the Mediterranean with a party of fellow Americans.
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/TwaInno.html

Black's Picturesque Tourist of Scotland (1851)
This currently provides a peg for a TV series in the UK following the guide and exploring how perceptions of Scotland have varied with the development of tourism, which is what gave me the idea iof suggesting some of these texts.
http://www.archive.org/details/blackspicturesqu00blacrich

James Boswell: The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D (1785)
Boswell's account of Dr Johnson's discovery of Scotland - after all his upbraiding comments about the Scots. The source below also cross references Johnson's own account, which might be an interesting contrast:
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usebooks/boswell-hebrides/index.html

Daniel Defoe: A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain (1724)
One of the earliest guidebooks
http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/text/contents_page.jsp?t_id=Defoe

Starlite · Post by **Starlite** » August 5th, 2011, 3:24 pm

PatrickLondon wrote: Mark Twain: Innocents Abroad (1869)
Twain's report of a tour of the Mediterranean with a party of fellow Americans.
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/TwaInno.html

Available here: http://librivox.org/the-innocents-abroad-by-mark-twain/

Esther

Carolin · Post by **Carolin** » August 8th, 2011, 2:50 pm

a collection of letters of amerigo vespucci just came out on gutenberg (with christopher columbus as co-author

)
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36924

CK

PatrickLondon · Post by **PatrickLondon** » August 11th, 2011, 3:59 am

The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole
Mary Seacole was a West Indian woman who, among other things, provided civilian help and support to British soldiers in the Crimean War, and is now honoured for that alongside Florence Nightingale.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23031
https://librivox.org/wonderful-adventures-of-mrs-seacole-in-many-lands-by-mary-seacole/

Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e Written during Her Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa to Persons of Distinction, Men of Letters, &c. in Different Parts of Europe
by Lady Mary Wortley Montague
Sprightly letters from an eighteenth century diplomat's wife. She is particularly remembered as an early enthusiast for inoculation, which she heard about, and underwent, in Turkey.
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17520/pg17520.html

The life and letters of Lady Hester Stanhope
by the Duchess of Cleveland
A biography that includes many observant letters from Lady Hester's travels in Europe and the Middle East.
http://www.archive.org/stream/lifelettersoflad00clevuoft/lifelettersoflad00clevuoft_djvu.txt

From Sea to Sea
by Rudyard Kipling
Collection of his newspaper articles on travels through India, Asia and America.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32977/32977-h/32977-h.htm

Post by **ColleenMc** » November 14th, 2018, 5:12 pm

Updates as of Nov 2018:

Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides is currently in progress as a solo:

viewtopic.php?p=1420997#p1420997

Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole has been completed:

https://librivox.org/wonderful-adventures-of-mrs-seacole-in-many-lands-by-mary-seacole/

pschempf · Post by **pschempf** » November 14th, 2018, 5:57 pm

Stevenson’s Inland Voyage has been done -
https://librivox.org/an-inland-voyage-by-robert-louis-stevenson/